In the Stones
by ncfan
Summary: The wind was fast and brisk, acting as though it had never been allowed to dance before. An eerie sound filled the air.


This is another installment in 'The Care and Feeding of Partly Human Children.'

I own nothing.

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The wind was fast and brisk, behaving as though it had never had a chance to really freely dance before. The sprawling branches of the oak tree waved and bounced. Elrond's hair, though barely past his shoulders, kept whipping in his face, necessitating an irritated swipe at it with his hand. At least Anor was bright and shining, high in the sky and unhidden by cloud.

An eerie sound filled the air.

Elrond had first noticed it maybe an hour ago. He was still inside, then, playing with Elros and the wooden animal toys Maglor had brought back from Ossiriand a week ago. Maglor had told them they would have a rest day from their reading and writing lessons, something that was frankly odd—they had had another rest day just yesterday, and Maglor usually only gave them rest days on every sixth day. However, neither of the brothers really complained all that much. They didn't mind having more time to play.

He heard the sound drifting inside through an open window. It was distorted by the blustery wind, wavering, louder and then softer depending on the how strong the gusts were.

After listening for a few minutes, Elrond realized that he knew what it was. There were harpists in Sirion, and he had heard them play, sometimes. This was unmistakably the sound of a harp being played, and more beautifully than he had ever heard a harp played in the place where he was born.

But who could have been playing? In all the time that he had been here in Amon Ereb, Elrond had never heard anyone playing upon a harp. The most music he ever heard made was a few of the soldiers, who knew how to play crude wooden flutes and would play out simple tunes on slow days. He had never heard anyone playing upon a harp, let alone so well.

Elrond left Elros to the wooden figurines they had been playing with, and went in search of the music-maker. He looked all through the fortress, peeked in through every door that wasn't locked, and nowhere did he see anyone playing on a harp.

Searching within the fortress proving a failure, Elrond slipped outside into the courtyard, blinking away the sunlight as best he could. Outside, the sound of harp-playing was far louder than it had been when he could only pick up faint strains through open windows. It reverberated against the stones of the courtyard, from the stones of the fortress and the walls, seeming to ring up from the stones themselves. The hairs on Elrond's arms stood on end as he wandered around the courtyard and the perimeter of the wall, searching still.

Finally, he found the music-maker, sitting in a half-shaded, secret corner full of cracked stone and clumps of grass growing up through the cracks.

There sat Maglor, his back against the wall, with eyes only for the harp in his lap. Elrond stared at it, amazed. The harp Maglor held in his lap was made of solid silver, gleaming so brightly in Anor's light that it almost seemed to be on fire.

Now, so close that he could see the music-maker face to face, the sound of the music he made was mesmerizing. Elrond stood, stock-still, staring at Maglor as he strummed his fingers across the harp strings. His feet were rooted to the ground; he couldn't have moved if he wanted to.

There should have been no reason for that. Elrond had heard the harp played before; it was nothing new to him. And there was nothing materially different about the way Maglor played his own harp. The music was lovely, yes, but there was nothing _different _about it. Why it did it command such a pull over him?

"Elrond?"

Elrond was snapped out of his daze when Maglor looked up and saw him standing there, watching. Maglor folded his hands in his lap, blinking pale eyes against the sunlight just as Elrond had to. For a long moment, they stared at each other, silent, faces twin images of uncertainty.

Finally, Maglor lifted one long hand to beckon him forward. "Come sit here, Elrond. The light will burn your skin if you stand in it for too long."

Elrond had lived by the seaside long enough to know that; he vaguely remembered having been sunburned once long ago. He did not say so, and instead sat down on Maglor's left hand side. "You can play the harp?" he blurted out, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

Maglor shot a surprised look at him, but then, he smiled, a lopsided smile, one side of his mouth merely twitching, but a smile, nonetheless. "I've not told you this, have I?" he admitted ruefully. "And I suppose it's been so long that the world may well have forgotten that I was ever involved with music," he muttered bitterly.

Elrond squirmed uncomfortably at that tone. He was well-aware by now what it meant when either Maglor or Maedhros took that sort of tone. It was the same sort of thing that happened when Elwing would get a particularly bitter look on her face. They were all remembering the past. They were unhappy with the lives they had now, Elrond supposed, or there was something in their memories that caused them pain—maybe it was both. Elwing had worn that face nearly constantly when she was not out in public or holding court. It wasn't hard to recognize the tones Maglor and Maedhros took as close kin to that face.

"When did you learn how to play a harp?" Elrond asked, hoping to distract Maglor from whatever it was he was remembering that made his voice so bitter.

"I was taught to play when I was a boy," Maglor supplied, and thankfully, the question did seem to have done the trick, for there was no longer any detectable trace of bitterness in his voice. "I learned under Master Lindano in Tirion, under the light of the Trees."

"Oh."

Maglor put a hand on his shoulder (and it was amazing to Elrond that had gotten used to his touch, when not long ago that same touch would have given him cause to fear) and smiled kindly down at him. "Would you like to learn how to play, Elrond?"

He didn't answer immediately. Honestly, the question surprised Elrond, and he wasn't sure why. Any illusion that Maglor was uninterested in him and Elros had been eradicated by the amount of effort he put into trying to teach them out to read and write, as well as the promises that he would teach them to read and write in Sindarin once he was satisfied with their proficiency in Quenya. Elrond knew that most children were taught how to read and write; he supposed that it would have been strange for Maglor _not _to try to teach him and Elros how to read and write, regardless of how they had come to be in his charge.

Music was different. Music wasn't like reading and writing. Not everyone learned how to do it, so no one was obligated to teach children how to play instruments or sing. But Maglor would be willing to teach him how to play the harp, despite that?

Maglor seemed to misinterpret Elrond's silence. "It will be easier than learning how to read and write, I assure you," he said in a low voice, his mouth twitching fitfully. "I always had greater ease in learning how to sing and play instruments than I did in learning anything else."

Elrond smiled slightly. "Alright."

It was astonishing, really, the change that came over Maglor's face when he beamed in response to Elrond's assent. Years fell from his face, the lines around his mouth seeming to only be smile lines. The effect was actually rather charming. "We'll start in a few days, then. And Elros, too, if he wishes."

It was difficult to say why, but that actually sounded… nice.

Maglor sighed deeply, running his hand over the back of his silver harp. "There are those who will tell you that it is a soft art," he murmured. "Music, I mean. There are those who will tell you that music is a soft art, that singing or playing instruments is an art fit only for those who do not possess strength in arms. But there is power in music, for those who can find it. There is power in song and in music. At times, when making music, you may weave magic without meaning to."

"Can you do magic?" Elrond didn't know much about magic, but he had heard the playing of Maglor's harp, and if he had been weaving magic then, it would certainly explain how Elrond had been reeled in, how he had been stilled, how he had found himself standing, transfixed, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight before him. Magic was supposed to do that to people; every story Elrond had ever heard about magic involved some sort of enchantment where whomever hapless enough to find themselves ensnared were quite thoroughly transfixed.

To this, Maglor let out a small, choked laugh. The wind blew his loose hair over his face, and Elrond could not see his expression as he responded, "No, child. There were books in Tirion that described the theory of magic, and I learned that far. But in order to learn any further than that, I would have had to go to Taniquetil."

"Taniquetil?" Elrond asked, confused. He had never heard that name before.

"Ah, you may have heard of it as Amon Uilos or Valmar; I believe that those are the names most commonly used in Beleriand these days. Taniquetil is the chief city of the Vanyar, or the Mínil as the Sindar call them. There were no masters among the Noldor, as regards to magic, and none among the Falmari; only the Vanyar paid it any significant attention, and thus anyone who wished to learn to perform magic would have needed to go to them. Two of my cousins studied there, and I did have friends in Taniquetil I could have stayed with, but it just…" Maglor paused. He brushed his hair away from his face, and didn't look at Elrond, staring off into space abstractedly. "…It just… just wasn't possible."

This was not the same as the bitterness Elrond could sometimes hear in Maglor's voice, but it left him just as uncomfortable, just as badly wishing for some relief to the tension that had so abruptly fallen over them. He reached out and touched one of Maglor's hands with his much-smaller one. "Maglor… Can you play some more?"

Maglor nodded silently, and began strumming his fingers along the shimmering harp strings once more. The music of his harp filled the bright summer air, calm and sad. It filled the stones, filled its listeners. Elrond fell into half-sleep listening to it, his head resting against Maglor's side.

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Anor—the Sindarin name for the Sun (Sindarin)  
Amon Uilos—a Sindarin name for Taniquetil, meaning 'The White Mountain' (Sindarin)  
Valmar—the city of the Valar and the Maiar in Aman, west of Taniquetil; confused by many who have never been in Aman for the city of the Vanyar  
Mínil—a Sindarin name for the Vanyar (singular: Miniel) (Sindarin)  
Falmari—those among the Teleri who completed the journey to Aman; the name is derived from the Quenya falma, '[crested] wave.'


End file.
